


Asssassin's Creed Revelations 6:8

by PurpleMoon3



Series: Bite Sized Bits of Fic [18]
Category: Assassin's Creed - All Media Types, Highlander - All Media Types
Genre: Bleeding Effect, Genetic Memory, Immortality, Immortals are Isu, It is scary how well the two mythologies fit together, Kronos is an Ass, M/M, Methusala Stone Anyone?, Opposite of a Fix-It Fic, and also an assassin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-15
Updated: 2018-07-15
Packaged: 2019-06-10 23:02:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15301959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PurpleMoon3/pseuds/PurpleMoon3
Summary: Kronos was hoping to recruit the Kurgan, but all he found was a headless corpse and a brother who doesn't know he is a brother.  Yet.Connor better get on that Shield from the 2nd Movie.





	Asssassin's Creed Revelations 6:8

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt Fill: [author's choice, author's choice, He who wields power over time and tide (Beowulf)](https://comment-fic.livejournal.com/925602.html?thread=108483490#t108483490)
> 
>  
> 
> Note: Kronos didn't eat his children. He just took their quickenings, and Jupiter/Zeus is a cheating cheater who cast his old man into the future rather than risk fighting him in a proper Challenge. One of the many ways Isu tried to save their race was throwing babies into different points in the future. Unfortunately, this had the unknown side effect of rendering them all sterile. Whoops?

He'd come to the Americas -to New York- following bloody breadcrumbs left by a man as ruthless as Methos and more mad than Caspian. A kindred spirit, he'd hoped, and if not Kronos would have settled for a decent challenge. It got so boring fighting whelps with barely a century under their belts.

He'd followed the trail of destruction and decapitations across an ocean, but by the time he'd caught up to his quarry the Kurgan was dead and MacLeod the Elder had fled the country with the _politia_ at his heels. He'd roused himself from France hoping to find a brother, a confidant, a diversion... but all he found was himself. The One living Immortal left in the city that never sleeps...

“One what?” A voice asked, vaguely amused and Kronos pulled himself from his ruminations to smile disarmingly at the bartender. A man, boy really, still tying the apron around his waist smiled back with the perfect teeth of an American. But his face, oh, his _face_. It was a thing of beauty, of nostalgia, of _brotherhood_.

“One of everything.” Kronos leaned closer to the man than necessary, gesturing grandly at the organized bottles stacked behind the bar. He closed one eye, and sniffed. “Take one down! Pass it around!”

“We don't keep the beer on the wall, buddy, only on tap.”

Kronos stared at the scar on the man's lips, and wondered at the placement of it. He was no stranger to doubles, to doppelgangers, but staring at the war crime he wondered for a moment of reincarnation. He wondered if he could break the man -break him in- and mold the spirit to fit the vessel. Taller, the bartender was, and heavier. Benefits of a modern diet, Kronos supposed with a twist of lips he'd perfected a millennium ago. “Show me a sunrise.”

The man reached for the tequila. Kronos imagined pinning him down, nipping at his collarbone, drawing blood and leaving bruises and wondered which would be better: willing or unwilling.

* * *

The nice thing about Immortality: Kronos can afford to take his time. He cracks a grin at the thought. He visits Bad Weather every other day or so, not always on nights the man -Desmond- works and not always speaking with him when he does. Kronos watches.

He watches the way the black bartender's uniform clings to the man's chest and the muscles on his arms only to have that finely kept figure vanish beneath hoodies a size too big when he jogs home. He watches the way Desmond flirts with the women, with the men, a casual back and forth that leaves extra tips in the jar and numbers on bills. Sometimes Kronos orders additional drinks to distract particularly besotted patrons and finds himself waking with a warm body curled beside his own. But the warmth lacks a certain spark, a recognition, and it isn't the body he wants.

That body is over eight hundred years dead and gone and -he'd thought- forgotten.

A week after he's eliminated his latest tail -he doesn't know if they're local, Interpol, KGB remnants, or one of the many secret societies that pop up every generation and he doesn't care- the choice is made for him. Kronos orders something suitably fruity for a cute little brunette -he wonders if she's the type to scream- and notices how her eyebrows don't quite match her hair. Dye job? Wig? _Women_.

She ignored the drink, and passed it off to a lush wearing _Dolce_. She asked Desmond if there were any places he'd recommend for an evening on the town. Desmond smiles sheepishly, apologizes, places several shot glasses on a little tray and fills them without looking away from the poaching little bitch. He's not a native of the city -the slower, calmer cadence Desmond speaks with should have made that obvious- and he can't recommend anything beyond a good movie theater.

She nods, brushes her hand against his wrist, and he jerks away with a small frown that melts into a sheepish laugh.

Two hours later Desmond goes on his break and the not-a-brunette follows him outside. Half a beat after _that_ Kronos follows her, and then follows the van advertising some cleaning service that drives off with his brother's double like the proverbial pig in a blanket.

* * *

Kronos is surprised to find that his favorite bartender gets kidnapped by Abstergo Industries. Because, well, it's _Abstergo_. The bleeding heart liberals that run enough third world charities to _run_ a third world. He should know. He's done enough mercenary work for and against them over the years he could identify the stylized Eh in his sleep. Not to mention all the warehouses he'd raided for his personal projects.

There are only so many ways to stab a man, and he has tried them all, but germ warfare... that's forever.

He'd mostly been lazing about in New York. It is empty of Immortals -he'd never really gotten along with Kastigir, but the man's ability to brew _BoomBoom_ had stayed his sword more than once- and Kronos doesn't have anything lined up. It was supposed to be quick trip. Too much trouble, he thinks, the kid he found to feed the monkey might try selling it if he stays gone much longer.

It is the thought of getting his hands on some proper equipment that does it. A sterile environment. Outside perspectives and research. _Smallpox_ samples. Pestilence practically salivates at the thought.

In the end it is surprisingly easy to find himself in Abstergo's stupidly secured halls. One of their leading medical scientists goes missing, something that is surprisingly common judging from the _lack_ of gossip, and in the shuffle of personnel Andre Korda is hired on to replace a research specialist that is now a project lead.

After that, well, walking through the facility feels a bit like coming home. There is a buzz just under his skin, like the air before a storm, and the computer system opens before him like a flower does the sun.

* * *

Subject 17 is sequestered on the topmost floor of the Abstergo's central building. It is the complete opposite of Kronos' own closed off basement labs filled with entire bays of centrifuge, beakers and pipettes stacked like cups and cutlery in a kitchen, and refrigerators large enough to store bodies. The walls hum from the computer banks nested between them: elegantly out of sight. During a coffee break, after cracking through cyber security that can stonewall a government probe but fails utterly when the breach comes from its own sweet self, Kronos learns that after the disaster that was Subject 16 a lighter approach was determined to be needed.

Doctor Vidic, and Kronos knows from reading his emails that if he ever meets the man in person he's going to kill him, doesn't think it necessary and dislikes the executive meddling. Abstergo's CEO, however, feels that the cost-benefit ratio to tracking down and securing subjects with proper bloodlines is too damn expensive for what might possibly be no payout what-so-ever. You cannot get blood from a stone.

You cannot mine memories from a corpse. Not for long, anyway, an hour at _best_. The first thing struck by decomposition is the genetic markers that allow the Animus to read ancestral memories.

So instead of near total isolation and drugs to calm and control when Subjects start questioning their reality... Subject 17 stays in a room remodeled to look more like a hotel than a prison cell, a keeper with instructions to build a rapport and trust, and mandated time to walk and explore and see that world outside still exists.

It's a shame, though, Kronos thinks as a thought begins to form. He scrolls down the closing report for Subject 16. Marks Subject 11 for later perusal. But at Subject 4 the thought crystallizes and Kronos sips his coffee, humming deep in his throat as the too-hot liquid burns all the way down.

Vidic is too stubborn, too stupid, and too damn lost in his own delusions of godhood to build any kind of trust. Ms. Stillman, however, is young and blonde and everything a young man needs to feel wanted.

Ms. Stillman's predecessor went missing, and no one will talk about it.

Two days later Ms. Stillman also goes missing. No one talks about it.

(Several Abstergo employees go missing that day, and certain groups _are_ concerned, but no one wants to be the nail that sticks up.)

* * *

 Kronos will acknowledge that he rarely looks beyond the surface of most things. Immediate gratification: the clash and clang of a battle and thrill of a quickening, that is what drives him. It creates a bit of a blind spot. Four a thousand years he'd had his brothers -he'd had Methos- to do the planning for him. But he's had all the achingly slow centuries since then to adapt to that lack.

It's like having an amputated limb at times, but for Immortals even those can grow back. Anything below the neck can be restored with enough time. Crippled Immortals rarely have the time. That's the nature of the Game.

Kronos has had nothing but time, and yet all the brotherhood's he's joined or put together fall apart around him as mortals prove their frailty be it in spirit or body.

Well... all but one. He'd joined and left of his own volition. He hadn't liked being in the position of taking orders. And then when he'd checked in on it, years later, the _Asasyun_ had devolved into little more than scattered bandits rather than the shadow warlords that had won his admiration.

Skimming through Abstergo's servers as a solution cooks, following stray bits of code that make Kronos wonder if these Templars of the modern age created another Ahriman, he watches footage of Subject 17 thrash and speak in his sleep. The video is soundless, but Kronos can read lips, and it isn't English that falls out of the double's nightmares.

* * *

 “ _Altaïr._ ” The cameras are looping, and what few guards there are assigned to the nearly deserted level have gone home or gone to their night shift distractions. All the doors are electronically locked -a power outage triggers a seal that requires Alan Rikkin's authority codes to undo- with pressure plates and motions sensors scattered throughout the building. “ _You've grown soft, brother._ ”

Subject 17, Desmond Miles, rolls out of the bed to crouch on all fours. He is still dressed in the loose, warm hoodie he was wearing three weeks ago when he was first abducted despite the fresh, folded laundry sitting atop a low dresser. His hair has grown out -no one is going to risk offering him something to cut it, or cut it for him, not after Subject 12- enough so that his bangs fall across the top of his eyes. He blinks, irritated, and cheek twitching in anger that softens into confusion. Kronos isn't sure if its his own face or the costume reveals as he sheds his coat. “You're-”

“ _Death has made you weak, Altaïr._ ” He punctuates the Arabic with a kick to the shocked boy's ribs, launching him upwards. There will be a bruise there in the morning, but that is the point. “ _Have you forgotten the Creed? Forgotten me?_ ”

“T-this isn't real.” Subject 17 coughs, one hand holding his maybe fractured ribs and the other arm up in a guard. “It's just... just in my head...fuck...”

Kronos laughs, and stalks forward in robes of a style and cut that had the seamstress tittering about grown men playing dress up. “ _Oh, dear brother. That is the rule, isn't it? Nothing is real_.”

Kronos starts soft, slow enough that even injured as he is Subject 17 successfully counters the incoming punch.

* * *

It becomes a pattern. Subject 17 becomes irritable, combative, and on more than one occasion Vidic calls for the security guards to escort the man to the Animus. He has to be tied down and not even the threat of drugs dissuades him in the midst of a bleed.

Kronos keeps track as best he can, mixing up cures and dissecting diseases and mostly doing the studies no one else wants to do as he double checks previous scientist's findings. It's boring work. Repetitive. It keeps his 'supervisors' off his back as they aren't expecting any breakthroughs but confirmations -or denials- of older experiments.

It also give him time to work on his side projects. The equipment, shiny and new and somewhat out of step of what he could have acquired on his own, speeds his research considerably. He is running into a bit of snag on the incubation period of the pathogen.

“Doctor Andre!” A man in Abstergo's security uniform ducks his head in as the glass door opens with a hiss. “Are you working late again?”

“Ah, yes? Sorry. There's just such a backlog here...” Kronos sighs dramatically, gesturing to stacks of print outs.

“Sucks to be new guy.” The man sighs. “Alright. I'll let the front desk know. Don't forget to page them before you leave the building.”

“Of course.”

Kronos waits another half hour after the man leaves, partly because he has an oven that needs to cool down and partly because he wants to make sure all the other wandering guns are firmly in their routes. The door opens almost on its own, and Subject 17 rises from a messy pile of ripped bedding, the circles under his eyes hidden by the hood. “ _Kronos.”_

“ _Shall we begin?”_ The horseman asks, proud and gentle.

Subject 17 give the slightest dip of his chin an answer, but Altaïr had never been very talkative. He'd been a man of action, and proves it as he darts forward to make an open palm strike to the horseman's chest. It is a feint, and Kronos has to rapidly retreat wholesale as the man turns the feint into a block and spins an elbow into Kronos' face. They dance back and forth for hours until mortal stamina runs out and collapse panting to the floor.

Kronos can't fight the grin on his face, doesn't want to, and crawls over to his littlest brother. He runs the knuckle of his pointer finger down a face that once made entire civilizations go to war. A faint crackle of static darts between them. Exhausted, brown eyes flutter. Scared lips part to suckle at Kronos finger.

* * *

 Kronos has always been just a bit flashy. Dramatic. To anyone who really knew him -which was now more than one hand and less than two- murdering a building full of people with an engineered disease in broad daylight wouldn't be a surprise.

It is for the Templars.

Abstergo's building is designed to be as self-sufficient as possible. It has its own water supply that he tainted two days ago and those who aren't going to be bleeding out from intestinal lesions will soon find themselves bleeding out from lacerations.

The alarms are blaring, red lights flashing, and it would be annoying if he hadn't thought to bring ear plugs with him in the morning. He'd had to tweak his original plans for the virus -he doesn't want to risk Altaïr getting sick _-_ and the risk of spreading the disease between carriers is now much lower. There is also a longer delay between incubation and presentation of symptoms.

The first sign is lethargy, followed by anemia and then shortness of breath. Shortly after that if the sepsis doesn't kill them the swollen lymph nodes and high fever will cook the internal organs starting with the brain. So delicate, the human brain, but then that is how they made it.

“ _Greetings, brother.”_ Kronos says as a dead body falls off his sword to make a bloody pool on the pristine white of Abstergo's floor. _“I brought you a gift.”_

Altaïr -once Subject 17, once Desmond Miles- slides his gaze over the corpse and settles on the briefcase in Kronos' hand. For a moment there is conflict in Altaïr's eyes, distrust, but that is swallowed by the voice that comes over the intercom. Vidic. His brother takes the briefcase and bypasses the simple combination lock with a flash of Vision. It's one of those wonders of evolution, of mutation, that took an ability allowing gods to recognize one another and weaponized it, utterly.

Altaïr dresses in familiar robes and belts, cinching buckles, fingering smoke bombs, and stares with a frown at his own hand and the clear presence of a ring finger.

Kronos takes the bracer from Altaïr's hand and slips it on him. It fits perfectly, of course. Pestilence tightens the straps and catches the darker man's mouth with his. He cards his fingers through dark brown locks, gentle, and proffers an eagle feather like a magician plucking a coin from thin air. He smiles with a whisper of, “ _Warren Vidic.”_

Altaïr doesn't smile. He's never been one for overt shows of emotion, but he accepts the feather with a certain hunger in his eyes and together they make merry havoc through the building.

For the first time in a long time Kronos feels home.

With a brother at his back he feels... _safe_.

* * *

 “Bill?”

William Miles stares at the shaky footage caught from a news helicopter. It should be impossible, but he can't deny what all the media outlets are calling a terrorist attack. He can't deny two figures in taunting hoods and robes as they leap from the top of a skyscraper and vanish into the long shadows between buildings.

“Bill? William? What does this... is that really Desmond?”

Is that our son, she means. After their agent went silent they feared the worst.  They'd feared that Abstergo would mine the runaway for his blood and find the pieces of Eden before the Assassins could do anything to stop it.

“I don't know.” William says as a great pit opens in his stomach. “I don't know.”


End file.
